SERMONS
Sermon 7/19/20: Sacred Places (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
The Holy One is with us wherever we go. If only we’d open our eyes to see and hear God’s blessing in the most unexpected places and parts of our lives. Sometimes it’s just too hard to recognize God’s presence among us or to recognize ourselves as holy and beloved by God. Like Jacob we run from our past and worry about our future.
Yet God knows your greatest joys and deepest pains and loves you anyway. Receive this promise, like Jacob did, from the Holy One who is with you in your dreams and in your journey to an unknown future.
May you find sacred places and times to rest in God’s presence even in the most unexpected and surprising times.
Sermon 7/12/20: No Rules, Just Response (Pr. Ben Adams)
As followers of Christ we have been set free from the laws of sin and death and in the famous words of Leo Balmudo from Grease, “the rules are there ain’t no rules,” just our response to the love and grace we have experienced through Christ's death and resurrection. Christ IS victorious over death and has sown in us a victory garden with seeds of freedom planted in the soil of our lives, watered by our baptism, that give way to glorious, life-giving fruit. Through the example of rule-breakers like Jacob, Paul, and even God, our profligate seed sower, we are invited to also not follow the rules, and instead follow Christ and respond to the love and grace we have in Christ by extending that same love and grace to others.
Sermon 6/28/20: Pride and Joy (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Remember you are God’s pride and joy. You have a future! God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah is for you as well. For everyone born, a place at the table. Isaac and Ishmael. Muslim, Jew, Christian. All those longing for a cup of cold water, those praying for a new day, a better world, a more equitable society, a future bright with promise. People of all colors, races, genders, sexualities, religions, spiritualities, ideologies. For everyone born, All God’s beloved children. God’s pride and joy.
Sermon 7/5/2020: A Genesis Love Story (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
Just like many great love stories in the Bible, this one began with well-springs of water at the baptismal font, when promises were made by God and humans. In those waters we were claimed as God’s beloved, a relationship with the Holy one was born, and God’s faithfulness secured. We are invited to embrace this never-ending love story and say “Yes!” Yes, to God’s love for us. Yes, to God’s love for the world. Yes, to God’s faithfulness, trusting that God will provide all that we need as we work to love our neighbors as ourselves, trusting that God provides for all generations.
Sermon 6/21/2020: We Need You To Survive (Pr. Ben Adams)
For our black sisters, may the powerful story of Hagar go with you, because as a single mother on her own in the wilderness, Hagar may not have experienced liberation, but she was found by a God who saw her struggle, heard the cry of her dying son, and helped her survive. And that says a lot about who God is and who God shows up for. And for us all, may Hagar’s story challenge and agitate us to dismantle the same patriarchal, racist, classist structures that held Hagar down, and that continue to especially hold our black sisters down today. We need you to survive, and together, we can move forward with the help of God trusting that the moral arc of the universe ultimately bends towards justice.
Sermon 6/14/20: Laughable (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Laugh with me! Join God’s dream to make the impossible possible. I love this quote from theologian Harvey Cox: “holy laughter is the gift of grace. It is the human spirit’s last defense against banality and despair. We praise of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Sarah, Rachel, and Rebekka. Mary, Jesus, and Paul. God is faithful. You have a future. All will be well. All will be healed. It is the kind of joy we saw at George Floyd’s funeral and at the funeral of the Emmanuel Nine. Even with hearts breaking, we join the laughter of the universe! For Christ is risen. A good laugh, indeed.
Sermon 5/31/20: Dreaming Big (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Will join me in this dream? Will you join the community of Holy Trinity to envision a new church, a new country, a new world? Use your imagination. Even as another black man cries out, “I can’t breathe,” even as we hold our breath in fear and anger, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on us today.
I sense it deep in my bones. The Spirit is among us. The Spirit is already creating something new in our world. It is a time for dreams and visions. And a new Pentecost!
Sermon 5/24/20: Still Here (Troy Medlin)
Jesus will come again, and be with us, and stay with us, the same way he came before. Jesus has come, again and again, and continues to dwell among us, in the midst of the messy and mundane of your life and mine. The promise of the ascension is that Jesus is still with us, that he has never left us, he has set up shop with us and continues to walk by our side.
Sermon 5/17/20: In Defense of Hope (Pr. Ben Adams)
There’s no going back to the way things were, things will never be the same, but that doesn’t mean things will be worse. In many ways we have an opportunity to make things better, and by contributing to a better future for all people and not just some, we can be the change that creates a more hopeful future. With the Holy Spirit as our ever present advocate and defense, we can confidently and faithfully step into this future together with hope.
Sermon 5/10/20: Room to Abide (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
God is roomy. God is generous. God is hospitable. God can handle your doubts, your fears, your questions. Our dwelling place with God is not only a promise for funerals, at the time of death. It is a promise for the eternal life we are living now.
Sermon 4/26/20: Shall we stand still or walk forward? (Pr. Craig Mueller)
With heavy hearts, you may be more open than ever to see Easter revealed among us in surprising ways. You may be more open than ever to envision a new society, a new church, a new way of walking on the earth. You may be more open than ever to share your deepest heartache and listening with compassion as others do the same. You will indeed walk on, as the beloved song from Carousel names. “Walk on, with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.” Community, indeed. But now more than ever, we may also find the gift in standing still. In being with what is. In expressing our fears, our tears, our hopes, our prayers. In leaving silence for someone else to cry or to lament. With burning hearts, with open eyes—and with one another—we will walk on. And I am sure of this: through the resurrection of Christ, a new tomorrow, filled with Easter hope, is already dawning.
Sermon 4/12/20: Dare to be Found (Pr. Ben Adams)
Christ rose from the dead to liberate us from our captivity, to bring us into the fullness of God’s family, and to be found by God’s divine love over and over and over again. The Marys have shown us what it looks like to dare to be found, and they were found because the first thing that the risen Jesus does is to go find others to invite into a life of divine love — a life of love that death cannot destroy. This morning is your reminder that you have already been found by God’s Divine Love, but it’s also your invitation to live into God’s Easter liberation and to dare to be found again and again by God’s divine love!
Sermon 4/10/20: The most Good Friday-est Good Friday I’ve ever Good Friday-ed (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
I imagine Mary standing at the foot of the cross eyes swollen with tears, her heart breaking, her lungs gasping for air as she watches her son dying for the suffering of the world. Her grief, our grief, the world’s grief are held in the arms of the crucified one this night and every night. Our suffering and sorrow, our doubts and despair, our agony and anguish are joined not only to Christ’s but to the brokenness of all creation. And yet, in John’s gospel what looks like defeat, is victory. What seems like an ending is new birth. Maybe all we can hope is that God will be here now, in our flesh. And that somehow, the cross will be to us healing and resurrection.
Sermon 4/11/20: Easter Arrives (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Though we shelter in place, we do not forget the fragile and those in need. We seek new ways to care for one another. To check on neighbors. To express gratitude to medical professionals, delivery workers, first responders. And Easter arrives. We long for that day when the stone is rolled away. We hope for the day when social distancing is past, our masks are off and we begin to see others previously camouflaged by our own prejudice or indifference. And Easter arrives. This is the night. Easter has arrived. And in the darkness light shines. Freedom dawns. Hope burns brightly. We step boldly into the future. And this night as always, alleluia is our song.
Sermon 4/9/2020: Love to the End (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Jesus loved this disciples to the end. Jesus loves us to the end. And calls us to follow his example of servanthood. Whether or not we wash feet ritually, we recommit ourselves to honoring and caring for bodies—our own and those of others, especially those most vulnerable. For in such acts of love and service, Easter already dawns.
Sermon 4/5/20: The Earth Moved Under Our Feet (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Around the table of the Lord—the table for which we long—we sing “hosanna in the highest,” in times of deep joy and times of deep sorrow. All these times coexist for us, as individuals and the people of God. God’s passionate mercy and love embrace us and all our suffering world this day. Holding us close, even as we are physically distant from one another. For as we walk the way of the cross, we trust the promise of spring, the hope of resurrection and new life.
Sermon 3/29/20: Breath Work (Pr. Ben Adams)
The death and suffering that the COVID-19 virus is causing might take our breath away and cause us to weep like Jesus did, but out of his love for us Jesus takes even that which is dead and dry and resurrects life. Life out of love is the same love that holds us together one to another, and holds us together personally when it seems like we have hit the rock bottom of our depths. So, as these weeks continue, let’s prophesy to the breath by reminding ourselves and others when we forget about the love that holds us all as one.
Sermon 3/22/20: Pr. Craig Mueller
A manuscript for this sermon is not available, however, you may listen to the audio of the sermon or watch the video of the entire liturgy, both linked in this post.
Sermon 3/8/2020: Comfort When Lost (Seminarian Troy Spencer)
Our faith may not bring to an end the feelings of being lost but our faith will be a source of comfort. And so as you feel lost this Lent, keep going, read on, and know that God has come as near as your very breath to offer you a place to rest.